


There but for the Grace of God

by thegraytigress



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:31:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5825068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraytigress/pseuds/thegraytigress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knew deep down she was better than what they’d done to her.  She simply had to realize that herself and embrace it.  And she deserved compassion, kindness, respect and loyalty and love, because she’d never known what it was to feel good.  Most of all, though, she deserved a friend.</p><p>He could be that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There but for the Grace of God

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissAdoration](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissAdoration/gifts).



> **DISCLAIMER:** _The Avengers_ is the properties of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.
> 
>  **RATING:** T (for language, violence)
> 
>  **AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This little ficlet goes out to MissAdoration, who has been requesting a Clint  & Natasha hurt/comfort thing for quite a while. Enjoy, my dear!

Working with Black Widow had its challenges.  She could be cold and closed-off, vicious when it suited her.  She could slip so easily from one mask to another that it was difficult to read her.  She could play _anyone_ without much regard for her target’s feelings.  Over the last few months since bringing her into SHIELD, Clint had lost track of the times she’d done something morally questionable, emotionless or even cruel, but she really didn’t know any better.  She’d spent so many years – her whole life, in fact – in the hands of the Red Room, so the damage ran deep.  He hadn’t realized how deep at the time, when he’d brought a defeated and defiant Natalia Romanova before Nick Fury and ardently pled the case that she should have the chance to join SHIELD instead of facing prison or execution for her innumerable crimes.  And he didn’t regret that, despite the constant strain and headache it had been since then to teach her right and wrong, to undo the “training” (brainwashing if he’d ever seen it) of the Red Room, to show her what she had to be in order to survive in this world.  She’d needed to learn so much, not just SHIELD protocols and rules, but how to _work with_ and _respect_ other people.  How to function in a normal social setting.  How to be a teammate and someone capable of trusting and worthy of being trusted.  He hadn’t quite realized what he’d signed up for when he’d promised Fury that he’d take care of her rehabilitation and integration, when he’d taken this burden and responsibility on his shoulders.  He’d had no idea.

But Clint was not a quitter.  Not in the least.

“Come on, Natasha,” he said for the seemingly millionth time.  He was a damn broken record of placating nonsense.  If that wasn’t a testament to how helpless he was, he didn’t know what was.  “Come on.  You hang on.  You hear me?”

She only writhed through another nightmare.  They’d been trapped in this hellhole of an abandoned enemy safe house for most the night.  He’d had a bad feeling about this mission from the get-go, particularly when Hill had pulled him aside to warn him that their targets (Russian black market arms dealers) had ties to the Red Room.  He’d tried to suggest to his new partner (who didn’t typically take well to suggestions like this at all – he’d learned that viciously quickly) that she sit this one out, but Natasha had been insistent.  Sure enough, their intel had been completely wrong and the whole damn setup with the fake weapons shipment had been a setup.  The Red Room had set a trap to get revenge on their lost spider, and they’d fallen right into it.  Outnumbered and outgunned, the two SHIELD agents had barely managed to escape, and even then it hadn’t been before Natasha had been shot.

The wound hadn’t been all that bad, a through and through on her calf, but they’d been forced to escape the warehouse where the fictitious weapons exchange was occurring through the sewer.  Then they’d ended up running across the Russian countryside, struggling through muddy woods and cold, damp conditions.  He’d noticed almost immediately the morning after the attack that her wound was infected.  It had only gotten worse that day, a fever slowly overtaking her as the wound turned more and more septic.  There’d been no choice but to keep running, though.  With their gear taken and their armaments down to his handgun and her knife, they’d had little chance of winning any further engagements, so fleeing and hiding seemed the best course.  Eventually Clint had found this little hovel of a place attached to some sort of estate that Natasha claimed had once belonged to a wealthy higher-up of the Red Room.  It was abandoned now with the program’s decline, but Clint had found an old radio that he’d rewired and used to broadcast an SOS in Morse on every frequency he could remember.  Hopefully SHIELD was listening.

And hopefully extraction was soon in coming.  Natasha had gotten significantly worse.  She’d fallen into a delirium of sorts, continually consumed and tormented by nightmares stirred to life by the close brush with her past.  She’d made the battle _worse_ back there, and they both knew it.  They’d hardly talked at all since they’d left DC, but he could tell she was brooding.  Her impulsive and stubborn attempts to kill all of the men sent to kill her, to prove _something,_ it seemed, had endangered them both, and now they were both suffering the consequences.  She’d been caught between shame and fury since their escape, silent and almost violently stewing, and he’d honestly been afraid to say anything more than the bare minimum, let alone broach the topic.  It was almost as if she was rebelling against shame.  That was the only way he could describe it.  Rebelling and struggling with processing not just what had happened but how it was making her _feel._

That had been before.  Now, as infection had quickly taken her, she lay on the best he could manage for a pallet: a couple old, musty blankets with his jacket bunched up under her head for a pillow.  She was burning up, and the gunshot wound was red, enflamed, and discolored under the remains of his undershirt.  Obviously he didn’t have the supplies to properly clean it.  He also knew it didn’t look good.  He hadn’t much allowed himself to worry that this was getting too serious for him to handle, but now…  She was moaning in Russian again, speaking so quickly and slurring so badly he couldn’t understand what she was saying.  He caught things now and then.  Begging for someone to stop and leave her alone.  Angry shouting at someone else.  Nightmares over memories of other nightmares, real and imagined.  The fever was burning her alive, and through the charred wounds in her soul, all this trauma was seeping out.  He’d imagined she’d suffered in the hands of the Red Room before but not like this.  And he knew something about darkness himself.  A whole lot about it.  This was somehow worse.  “You gotta hang on.  They’re going to get us out.”

“No!” Natasha wailed.  She writhed and shuddered, rolling onto her side and sobbing.  “No, no, please…  Please, don’t!”

“Come on.”  It was hard to stay calm, but he made himself do it.  He was exhausted and sore and banged up himself.  “Hang on.  You gotta hang on.”

 _“No!  I’ll kill you!”_   She was flailing now, looking for the knife she kept looking for.  Clint had hidden it as it became apparent she was too out of her mind to be trusted with a weapon (again, he’d learned that the hard way, with her attacking faster than he could stop and her pinning him against the wall with the blade jabbed into his throat and poised to strike.  She’d come out of it at the last second, but for a moment there, he’d honestly thought that was it).  Of course, if she really wanted to kill him, he had no doubt that she could without anything to help her.  He’d fought against her, trained with her, and he knew _exactly_ what she was capable of.  So staying so close was pretty dangerous and damn foolhardy.  That was his life now.  Running headlong into danger to do the best he could and not giving a damn.  She whimpered a strangled laugh, eyes dangerous and murderous and bright.  “I’ll kill you,” she swore again.

Boldly he grabbed her hands and rolled her back toward him.  “No, you won’t.”

A litany of profanity in Russian was spat at him in response, and he had to laugh despite the bad situation.  “You think you can stop me?” she hissed.

Clint cocked his head, reaching for the meager supply of clean water he’d found.  He wet the rag anew and put it back on top her head.  “No,” he conceded.  “But you can stop yourself.”  She gave a rough laugh of disbelief, a look of agony creasing her flushed face.

“You know what I am?  You think you know me?”

“I know they didn’t take you back.  They didn’t.  And I know you’re better than them.”

“No,” she gasped, squirming against his hold.

“Yes.”

“ _No!_ ”

He took her face, fighting not to wince at the scalding heat of her skin, and made her look at him.  “Yes, you are.  You’re not their killer, Natasha.  Not anymore.  You’re my partner.”

“No,” she whimpered.  “No, no, _please…_   They’ll hurt me if I – if I – if–”

“I got you out,” he said.  He kept his voice gentle and tender, but this was hardly the first time over the last endless hours he’d crashed into the misery of her childhood.  They’d punished her for doing good, for feeling guilt, for wavering from her goals.  He could see just how much now.  “You’re safe.  You’re with me.  You’re _staying_ with me.  I brought you out.”

For a moment, he thought maybe he got through the delirium.  Her eyelids fluttered, though, and she went back down.

The night wore on like this.  Clint kept his vigil, cooling Natasha as much as possible, checking on her leg, trying to keep her calm as the nightmares raged.  She was their hapless prisoner, and all he could do was try the best he could to free her over and over again.  It wasn’t much, and he felt terrible for it.  Frankly, even though Black Widow was a seductress and a murderer, Natalia Romanova – _Nat_ , he wanted to call her – was a young woman who’d never known anything but pain.  She was a feral dog in a sense, one cornered, brutalized, and abused, one who had faced so much cruelty that she _herself_ was cruel because it was all she knew.  Again, it was back to teaching her otherwise.  He knew deep down she was better than what they’d done to her.  She simply had to realize that herself and embrace it.  And she deserved compassion, kindness, respect and loyalty and _love_ , because she’d never known what it was to _feel_ good.  She deserved a friend.

He could be that.  He did what he could for her.  He had so far, and no matter how hard it was, he always would.

As dawn crept closer, the frantic fear and anger that had plagued her off and on for hours abated.  Now there was only the pain, and it came out of her in great waves.  She whimpered and moaned and cried in her sleep, struggling weakly and ineffectually against demons he couldn’t see.  He could imagine.  SHIELD still didn’t know much about the Red Room, and Natasha never spoke of it.  Still, some details had been revealed to them.  Ambitious, vicious men training young girls to be weapons.  They’d taken them off the streets, orphans and homeless.  Taken them away.  Handcuffed them to their beds.  Trained them in seduction.  Trained them to kill, both each other and any one in their way.  Trained them not to feel.  Seeing and hearing and experiencing the true horror of it like this, though, he hadn’t anticipated.  “Stay with me, Natasha.”  He kept saying that over and over again.  It seemed pretty pathetic, just how helpless he was, but he kept at it.  “Stay with me.  You’re not back there.  You’re with me.”

Her struggling had stilled a bit.  She was weak, battered still by her mind but her body was limp and trembling.  Clint stayed close, holding her hands, watching her breathe and waiting.  “I’m scared,” she whispered finally, seemingly sightless eyes roving the deep shadows around them.  “Don’t want to…”

“You won’t,” he promised.  Boldly he brushed the hair from her forehead.  Touch with her was always something dangerous, at times completely unwanted.  He was chancing it more and more.  And he was blinking and blinking to keep himself focused and grounded as the world blurred.  He couldn’t fall asleep.  Not when she needed him like this.  Still, his eyes slipped shut.  “You won’t go back.”

“Clint?”

His heart leapt and he looked down.  For the first time in hours, she was _seeing_ him.  She was beset with pain and sickness, but she was focusing.  “Yeah, Natasha,” he promised with a smile.  “Yeah, I’m here.”

She sobbed.  All of the walls she always had up so tightly around her, the masks and defenses, were falling now.  Crumbling away and leaving bare what was beneath.  A scared girl trying to do right.  That was what he’d seen when he’d made that different call and brought her in instead of killing her.  Just a hint of greatness beneath the veneer of a cold, compassionless killer.  It was all he could see now.  And it was what he was trying so hard to protect and nurture.  “They can’t take me back,” she whimpered.  “They’re so close…”

“They’re not,” he promised.  He prayed that wasn’t a lie.  “It’s all in your head.  SHIELD’s coming to take us home.”

Tears spilled from her eyes as the last vestiges of her control shattered, shaken and cracked by the close brush with her past and then eroded for hours by the pain and disease.  Clint had never fathomed ever seeing her like this.  It felt wrong on so many levels when she so coveted control, but… _validating._   “Clint, I…  I lost it back there.  Told me to fall back and I didn’t.  I didn’t listen.  Couldn’t make myself care.  Made mistakes.”  She closed her eyes.  “So many mistakes.”

“Doesn’t matter now.”  He couldn’t help but wipe the tears away with his thumb.  “You just hang on.”

“Should’ve… should’ve left me back there.  Where I belonged.”

“No.”

“Clint–”

“Shut up, Romanoff,” he said lightly.  “I’ve walked the wire for you, bringing you back with me.  You think I’m gonna turn my back now?  _Let_ them have you back?”  She coughed, shivering so violently she was shaking them both.  He grabbed both her hands again and folded them into his own over her chest.  “You’re going to be okay.  You know that, don’t you?  It’s going to be fine.”

She moaned, struggling weakly against him.  “Can’t ever make it okay.  Can’t do what you do.”

He gave a tight smile.  “You think that?  You think I’m a hero?”  She was aware enough to nod.  “I’m not.  Not at all.  I just do what I can.  And it’s not that easy.  And it takes a lot.  One step at a time.  One good deed.  It doesn’t just get better.”

“Can’t do it,” she whimpered again.  She sagged down, and he pressed closer.  “’m so weak.  So… _frustrating._ ”

“Not supposed to be easy,” he reminded.  “Told you that from the beginning.”

“Can’t do it.  Not as good as you.  You know what I am.  I’m not…  I’m nothing.”

He didn’t want to hear this nonsense.  She’d been saying in one way or another for weeks since he’d brought her back.  Her attitude.  The way she treated people and him.  The way she struggled.  And he wasn’t going to let her go on.  “Stop.  You can.  _You can._   You know how I know?  I know because I did.”  She didn’t hear that or didn’t understand it because she didn’t question.  She reached for him and pulled him closer, blindly seeking comfort, and he offered it readily.  He offered it because she deserved it.  She deserved that chance he’d given her.  She deserved to have someone care.  She deserved it, because if she didn’t, he never had.  He gathered her in his arms and kissed her forehead and held her as tightly as he could.  “Hang on, Nat.  Please.  You gotta keep fighting.”

She did.

Dawn came, and with it a quinjet roared across the sky.  The med-evac team arrived to find him still hugging her close, nearly asleep but still whispering his encouragement.  They took her away, getting her in a gurney and rushing her to the jet.  There they stabilized her, tending to her leg, pumping her full of antibiotics, fever reducers, and painkillers.  Clint watched, bleary-eyed and numb, as they worked on her.  “She’ll be okay, Agent Barton,” one of the nurses told him, a young guy with bright eyes and boundless energy and hope.  “It’s going to be okay.”

He had to laugh at that.

A few hours later, they were back aboard the helicarrier.  The doctors had patched up his injuries; they were nothing to write home about, and he’d be right as rain by getting a good night’s sleep and something to eat.  He didn’t go and get either, though.  Instead he wearily plodded to the ICU.

Natasha was there.  She was going to be fine; he’d overheard one of the doctors talking to Fury.  The bullet wound had required surgery, but they’d gotten the infection under control before it could cause much damage.  The fever was breaking.  Hydration and medication were doing wonders.  She’d make a full recovery.

Still, he found himself sitting in a chair beside her bed.  Despite spending more than a day with her a dark, unapproachable shadow, a night with her as a clawing, hissing cat that constantly threatened him with bodily harm or worse, despite how difficult she’d been to work with and how damaged she was and how hard all of this could be…  He couldn’t quite make himself go.  Not until she woke up.

He was dozing when she finally did.  Her soft, hoarse voice cut through the haze of sleep in his muddled mind, and he raised his head and opened his eyes to find her staring.  “Barton,” she croaked.  She licked dried, cracked lips and wearily blinked a few times.  She still looked sick and small.  More vulnerable and broken than she’d _ever_ looked, even when he’d had her on her knees before him with his gun to her head.  “We make it?”

He gave a gentle smile.  “What do you think?”

“Think you look like hell.”

He leaned back in his chair.  “You should talk.”

They were quiet for a while, tense and uncertain.  He watched her process it all.  How close she’d come to that world.  How much she’d almost lost.  How much she’d been forced to show him.  All this tentative progress…  She wasn’t going to rebuild the walls that had been broken down.  She could.  She could close off, pull away, get behind one of her many, many masks.  Hurt him.  Hide from him.  Do as Black Widow did.

But she wasn’t going to.  He could see that.  “I’m sorry,” she managed after a moment.  Her voice was nothing but genuine, and her eyes were open and true.

He didn’t think she realized how strong she actually was.   “Don’t be.  It’s what friends do for each other.”

She stared at him in shock for a moment.  Then, for the first time since he’d brought her home, she smiled.

**THE END**


End file.
